“Fair enough.”
“But you say, yourself, that Chase don’t agree with me on that.”
“He says so too.”
Amos tapped Gergue’s knee. “Pete, wouldn’t a good, smashing joke on Chase put him out of the running for a spell?”
Gergue considered. “I’ll say this, Amos,” he announced at length. “A joke on a man is all right, if it don’t go too far. If you go too far, you’ll make ’em sorry for Chase, and then there’ll be no stopping ’em. Politics sure does love a martyr. But—short o’ that—a joke’s good medicine.”
Caretall sat up quickly. “That’s fine,” he said soberly. “That’s fine,” he repeated. And he fell silent, and after a little said, half aloud and for the third time, “Peter, that’s fine.”
Peter’s pipe smoked out, and he, too, emptied the ashes and preserved the last charred bits of tobacco as Amos had done. Then he rose, reached slowly for his hat. “I’ll go along, Amos,” he announced.
The Congressman lumbered up out of his chair, his broad countenance beaming. “Fair enough, Peter. But, Pete—I want to ask you something.”
Gergue shifted his hat to his left hand; his right went to the back of his neck. “What is it?”